LA 



THE PRINCIPLE 



OF 



JEWISH EDUCATION IN THE PAST 



TWO ESSAYS. 



BY 



RABBI ABRAM SIMON. Ph. D. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 
1909. 




ass 






prii:sp;,NTi:D isv 



THE PRINCIPLE 



OF 



JEWISH EDUCATION IN THE PAST 



TWO ESSAYS. 



BY 



RABBI ABRAM SIMON. Ph. D. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 
1909. 



V ^ 



A-ufnor 

(Person) 

]AN 10 13 1 a 



DEDICATED 

IN FILIAL AFFECTION 
TO THE MEMORY OF 

MARY OBENDORFER, 

MOTHERLY EMBODIMENT 

OF 

THE IDEAL AND FORCE OF JEWISH EDUCATION. 



The Principle of Jewish Education in 
THE Past. 



"The Biblical Era. 



The phrases "Biblical Era" and ''Methods Applicable To- 
day" set two proper limits to the length and scope of this 
essay. I shall construe the Biblical Era as the fifteen hundred ^ 
years between the Patriarchal and the Maccabean epochs, \^^ 
and I shall consider only such methods and principles which 
seem to point a moral and adorn a tale in the volume of mod- 
ern education. This essay divides itself naturally into six 
parts, forming answers to these questions : 

I. What is the general trend and purpose of Education ? 
II. What is the specific purpose of (Education in the 
Bible? 
/ III. What was the standard of general culture in the Bib- 
lical Era? 

IV. How and by whom was such education or culture im- 
parted ? 

V. What are the methods and principles of such education, 
applicable to-day in our religious schools? 

VI. What is the message which the biblical educational 
ideal holds for this age? 

I. 

A Philosophy of Education is still in the making. The 
mass of information as to man's spiritual nature has not yet 
been formulated into so exact a scheme as to enable us to say 
that there is a complete Science of Education. If there is a 
science of education, it is descriptive rather than normative. 
The depth of the spiritual nature of man is now beim^ 



plumbed. Yet it must be admitted gladly that despite the 
foam of speedily vanishing frothy theories and deductions, 
divers have been privileged to bring to light and leading much 
of the content and method of spiritual phenomena. 1 he art 
of education is waiting patiently on the science of education. 
What we have not as yet, but ought to have is what J. S. Mill 
called, a treatise which would embody the "laws of the forma- 
tion of character." 

Fortunately, the human instinct insists on self-expression 
and self-reproduction, and formulates its moods, passions, 
ideas and dreams into moving traditions and fluid institutions 
according to its needs, ability and courage. Fortunately, the 
home performed its divine task before Sociology saw the light 
of scientific day. Parents did not vv^ait for the coming of 
Psychology and Pedagogy to impress themselves and their 
ideals upon their children. The race has educated itself with- 
out worrying over finalities. It gripped the eternal verities 
of life; the ages have slowly clothed them in flesh and bone. 
The real heart of the Educational Ideal has never ceased beat- 
ing since the dawn of human life. 

Our modern educational ideal is a synthesis of all the past 
ideals as modified by the growth of nationality, democracy, 
science and industrial development. It revolves about the 
right of each child to its own fullest development, the duty of 
the State to train its children to the highest efficiency of citi- 
zenship, and to the right and duty of the home to be the pro- 
ductive and practical unit of Society for the care of child- 
hood. While the first and second ideas have received but 
scant philosophical recognition in the past, the third idea, the 
dower and duty of home, has never failed to be appreciated 
as the dynamic force and possibility of all education. The 
Home contains the first and best of all schools, all teachers, all 
pedagogics, and I much doubt if Society will ever develop a 
sublimer institution for the production, conservation and en- 
hancement of its accumulating treasures. Nor should it be 
forgotten that the education in the home was connected and 
saturated with the rites and rules of religion. Education 
seeded and sprouted in the home, but it has been fertilized by 
Faith. If the progress of society has thrown the b^i^'den of 
education upon the State, it may well pause in con'^idering^ 
in how far it can afford to dispense with the intimac^' '^nd the 
warmth of domestic instruction and the glow of r^bVion in 
the training of its citizenship for Life. "Education 'hen, in 



its widest sense is the means which a nation (in which State, 
Church and Home are organic units,) takes deUberately for 
the training of its citizens in the traditions and principles of 
national character and for the promotion of the welfare of the 
whole as an organized ethical communir/."* 

Out of this, has grown our modern Educational Ideal, 
Babylonia and Egypt had general learning but it was exclu- 
sively the privilege and the possession of the priests; they 
have not left us their ideal so as to have it succinctly embod- 
ied. From Greece comes the ideal of culture, embodied in 
philosopher and athlete. Rome found her ideal of efficiency 
in the training of the orator. The Middle Ages busied them- 
selves in producing the monk in the cloister and the knight in 
the castle. The masses in their ignorance w^atched the devel- 
opment side by side of these ideals of monkish piety and 
knightly chivalry. The Renaissance broadened the mind, 
and brought back Greek and Roman ideals. The Reformation 
clarified the heart and brought back the Bible ideals. The one 
gave learning more breadth and depth ; the other gave relig- 
ion more purity and more scope. A new educational ideal was 
born when the fertile brain of Rousseau gave "Emile" to the 
World in 1762. The Ideal of Nature, of a nature as it ca;n 
only exist in the imagination of men to whom civilization is'-^ 
curse and a cross, thrilled Europe. Young Emile is to 
trained in the lap and arms of Nature. No restraint, no rul 
no books, no obedience, no God, — only a full reliance on, an 
devotion to. Nature and the child-instincts of human natur 
Learn nature's secrets ! Nature must be the Bible ; experi- 
ment and observation are the Law and the Prophets. Let 
him grow strong, learn to swim, use his hands, and at fifteen 
introduce him to history, literature and society. This idea 
went home to the masses. AmJd much rubbish, it contains a 
principle which has been transforming all modern Education, 
and finding its enhanced expression and formulation in Pes- 
talozzi, Froebel, Spencer, Bain and a host of noble workers 
who are bringing us at last to the heart of the child. Thus, 
Education has become a movement of the people, for the peo- 
ple and by the people, and for the completest and most har- 
monious inter-action of the individual and of society for cTch 
other's life and progress. To this happy consummation, 
modernity is contributing the ideal of service. 

*S. S. Laurie—- Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Civilization "—Introduction. 




The question is, Is the modern Educational Ideal wholly a 
synthesis of the Greek, the Roman, the Middle Age and the 
modern democratic struggle? What do modern educators 
mean when they speak of Heart-culture, Character-building, 
spiritual training, or the preparation of the individual for 
life? Do these not hark back to the Bible, to the fundamental 
concepts and principles therein contained? Can we escape 
the conclusion that the stress and sweep of modern education 
are intrinsically about the heart of Israel, about the old Bibli- 
cal ideal of Religious Culture ? 

Is not Religious Culture, then, not only the contribution of 
Israel to the treasure-house of education, but also the Princi- 
-c-^^^^ple which evolutes all other gifts; or, changing the figure, is 
it not the conviction which is forming and transforming all 
theories to a necessity for the cultivation of character and 
life? 

11. 

It is not difificult to understand the purpose of Education in 
the Bible. The Bible is the world's oldest text-book on racial 
and individual training. The people who wrote the Bible are 
the classic pedagogues of civilization. The Hebrew was the 
only one who ever built up an educational program on relig- 
ion. Its theory called for a levelling-up process of the people 
to the standing, dignity, piety and learning of priests. While 
learning was not the possession of all, theoretically it was the 
privilege of all. Israel's ideal of a kingdom of priests called 
for the educational art which could give reality to such an 
ideal. Floating before the minds of all Hebrew educators 
was this inspiring message, "Surely, this great nation is a 
wise and understanding people." (Deut. IV, 6). There is 
nowhere a statement that education is an exclusive preroga- 
tive. 

In how far culture in ancient Israel was general it is im- 
possible to say with any degree of definiteness. It is a fact, 
however, that Israel in Egypt, in Canaan and in Babylonia, 
was in the midst of a nation of superior intellectual and politi 
cal culture. The genius of the Hebrew (and later on of the 
Jew) lay in his masterful absorbing function by which he 
transformed and transfigured the products thereof in the 
alembic of his soul. Whatever served this instinct was uti- 
lized and sublimated. He "Israelized" the Osiris of Egypt. 



the Baalim of Canaan and the Ormuzd-Ahriman of Persia. 
He ethicized their gods, their myths, their institutions and 
their ceremonies. He rehgionized everything finally into an 
ethical monotheism and preserved it immortally in a Book 
and, with his pedagogical instinct, made his holy God the 
World's Educator. Thus, the Hebrew, his God, his religion 
and his book stand together as the Biblical contribution to the 
learning and the pedagogy of the human race. 

The method adopted for the perpetuation of his first fruits 
is inherently the best. God, Home and the Torah are the three 
classic and organic units. Education in the Bible begins with 
obedience to parents, centers in reverence for God and ends 
in the discipline and consecration of life. Israel laid his great- 
est burden on the home as the educator of the race, and sanc- 
tioned the fifth commandment as its divine guarantee of per- 
petuity. From early morning until nightfall the day brought 
its lessons and warnings, its prayers and its sacrifices. Daily 
and insistently the instruction revolved about the love of God 
and His choice and training of Israel for his divinely set and 
priestly-charactered mission. "Out of heaven He made thee 
to hear His voice that He might instruct thee. Upon earth 
he showed thee His great fire and thou heardest His words 
out of the midst of the fire. And because He loved thy 
fathers, therefore He chose their seed after them and brought 
thee out in His sight with His mighty power out of Egypt. 
Know, therefore, this day and consider it in thy heart that 
the Lord is God in the Heaven above and upon the Earth be- 
neath. There is none else. Thou shalt keep, therefore, His 
statutes and His commandments which I command thee this 
day that it may go well with thee and with thy children after 
thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth 
which the Lord, thy God, giveth thee forever." (Deut. IV, 
36-40). Love God and do His commandments, for this is the 
whole duty of man. Religious training, then, is for personal 
and social righteousness. To know God is to do right. To 
do right is to be pious. Piety is learning. The knowledge of 
God is for the consecration of life. ''Knozv God in order to 
live godly," this is the purpose of Education in the Bible. 
Know God, not for the intellectual satisfaction involved, but 
in order to love Him ! Love Him, not for the mere discharge 
of emptional energy but that you may live ! Live, not for a 
mere satisfaction of the instinct for existence, but in order 
that you may consecrate it ! In other words. Religious Cul- 
ture is the educational ideal of the Bible. 



10 

III. 

AVhat do we know of the level of culture in the biblical era? 
What subjects were taught the children in the home or the 
adults in the professional schools or in the synagogs? A cur- 
riculum is out of the question. Something besides religion 
must have been taught in a history of fifteen hundred years. 
Josephus is proud to say that Jewish education was so super- 
ior to the Greek or Roman, in that it was both theoretical and 
practical. I can understand that the "theoretical" would in- 
clude a knowledge of religion, of the parts of the history as it 
developed, a training in ethical duty, in the holidays and 
in reading Hebrew. But the "practical" must have been 
more than a participation in the sacrifical system. Ecclesias • 
tes said "Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy 
might ;" we would be using a cheap homiletics to make this 
bolster a plea for industrial education. However, there was 
training in war. All over twenty years must have served 
some apprenticeship and profited by its physical training. 

n Sam. 1 : 8, has the training of the men of Judah in the 
use of the bow. 

Strong as are the words against sloth and idleness, yet the 
Greek conception finds no clear enunciation until the begin- 
ning of the Maccabean era. 

Music was certainly taught to the upper classes. The trav- 
eling prophets in Samuel's day no less than the priests in con- 
nection with the temple of Solomon and of those who returned 
under Ezra were teachers of music, though their music was 
essentially for worship. (I Chr. XXV 8b; H Chr. XVH, i ; 
Prov.XXV, 5). 

Nor know we of the sciences which were taught. The He- 
brew displayed no aptitude in the gathering and collating of 
scientific data. Some priests may have known something of 
medicine, hygiene, astronomy, but we do not know of science 
as subjects of education. Toy, in his notes on "The Book of 
Proverbs," p. 531 suspects that the words. Chapter XXX, 18 
and 19, 

"Three things are beyond my ken 

And four I do not understand 

The way of the vulture in the air. 

The way of a serpent over a rock. 

The way of a ship on the high sea 

And the way of a man with a woman," ^ 



n 

are lessons in natural history and physics. So the words, wis- 
dom, intelligence, knowledge, doctrine, counsel, understand- 
ing, guidance, Torah, teaching, sagacity, discretion, the way, 
often finely drawn in the bible, may represent crude divisions 
of general cultures. 

Was writing taught? We touch debatable ground. We 
may not be far from wrong in allowing a fairly common ac- 
complishment in this direction before the Exile. Words and 
scenes about writing occur in every page of the Scripture. 
In Genesis XXXVIII, i8, Juda's signet ring must have been 
lettered. Judges VIII, 14 reveals a young man putting down 
in the writing the names of the princes of Succoth. In Judges 
V, 14 we find the words nSD toni^' "the tribe of the book." 
The administrative system of judges and elders under Moses 
and for many years later implies the supposition that they 
could keep record of names, dates and facts. Deut. XX 
speaks of C'"DSi^ sub-military officers, who kept the register 
of those who served in the army. I Chr. II speaks of Jabez — 
the home of writing. Deut. XXIV treats of writing a bill of 
divorce, while the Mezuza calls for writing. "Thou shalt 
write them upon the door-posts," "Upon the tablets of thy 
heart," "the two tablets of stone" call for a familiarity with 
the art of writing. In II Sam. VIII, 7 ; II Sam. XX, 5 ; I Chr. 

XVIII, 16; I Chr. XXIV, 6; I Kings IV, 3, and II Kings 

XIX, 2.2, occur the names of Sheva, Shebua, Shaphan, 
Sh'maya, Savya, Elisaref and Ahii as scribes under David 
and Solomon. Psalm CIX and Proverbs XXX 11 -31 are 
alphabetic acrostics. How comes it that Amos and Micah 
two of the greatest prophets who came from the masses spoke 
such classical Hebrew, and that Amos, the dresser of syca- 
mores was the first to put his sermons to writing? The Bible 
itself is incontestable proof that the people had the literary 
instinct and passion for self-expression in stately language. 

Jeremiah XXXVI, 18 uses the word ink. From II Kings 

XX, 20 and later referred to in II Chr. XXXII, 30 we learn 
of the great conduit built in the days of Hezekiah, and its in- 
scription now deciphered, is living testimony to the knowledge 
of writing in the eighth century, B. C. 

Yet the Bible is only a remnant of a great literature which 
the writers must have had for reference? Out of the Bible 
we draw the proof of the one-time existence of smaller tracts, 
codes, histories, epics and dirges. There existed "The Book 
of Yashar" (II Sam. I, 18); 

"The Wars of Jehovah" (Num. XXI, 24). 



12 

"The Book of the Covenant" ( Ex. XX, 20-23 ) . 

"The Little Book of the Covenant" (Ex. XXXIV). 

'The Hohness Code" (Levit. XVII-XXVI). 

"Collections of Dirges" (Amos V, 2; Jer. XLVIII, 36; II 
Chr. XXXV, 25). 

"Collections of Genealogies by the prophets Shemaiyah 
and Iddo." (II Chr. XII, 15; XIII, 22). 

Vv ere these tracts and booklets written for private circula- 
tion? Where they text-books on religion and history? 

Does not Numbers V, 11-23 indicate a separate tract on 
"The Lav/ of Jealousy?" 

May Exodus XXXIV not have been a catechism in Relig- 
ion ? The existence of so much writing before the Exile com- 
pels us to the belief that writing was not the exclusive posses- 
sion of the priests and levites. 

Whether the arts of natural history, music, writing, were 
only taught in the upper classes will never be definitely 
known. One thing is certain ; after the return from the Exile 
and for a century thereafter so general was education that 
Ecclesiastes could say in sarcasm, and with truth, "Of the 
making of books there is no end." (Eccl. XII, 12). When we 
consider this question in connection with the further query 
"How or where was instruction imparted?" the probability 
of a wide and general culture becomes a certainty in post- 
exilic days. Ancient Israel had no schools in our sense of the 
word. The phrase "schools of prophets" means rather a 
guild than a fixed place of instruction. Instruction w^as mostly 
oral and given in the home. The Levites, scattered through- 
out the length and breadth of the land, came into close con 
tact with the people and, doubtless, served as the pioneer mis- 
sionaries. The prophets in their peripatetic wanderings made 
every spot a platform, a temporary school for public instruc- 
tion. The porch of the temple was often used ; and here and 
there, we infer that the wide open places (Prov. I, 20) and 
cross-roads furnished favorable meeting grounds for the 
sages and their pupils. 

But the birth of the Synagogue was the greatest educa- 
tional factor in Jewish history since the prophets' voice was 
hushed. The word "Midrash" appearing twice in II Chron. 
XII, 22 and XXIV, 27 cannot mean school but commentary. 
"The institution known as the "be rab" or "bet rabban" 
(house of the teacher) or as the "be safra" or "bet sefer" 
(house of the book) is supposed to have been originated by 



13 

Ezra and his Great Assembly, which provided a public school 
in Jerusalem to secure the Education of fatherless boys of the 
age of sixteen years and upward." (Jewish Ency. Vol. XII p. 
37). The growth of the synagogue was so rapid that by the 
second century B. C. there was scarcely a town which had noc 
at least one synagogue. There was no conflict between the 
Temple and the Synagogue. They flourished side by side, 
performing complementary functions. The Temple was for 
sacrifice and worship ; the latter for instruction. The former 
had a certain aloofness; the essential nature of the latter 
was democratic. It was the "People's Institute." The Syna- 
gogue was the public high school where the Law was read 
and expounded, where prayer and praises were offered. In 
the latter the services were conducted by the elders and the 
priests, while the instruction was in the hands of the laity, 
the sages. In addition to the popularizing of knowledge in 
the Synagogues, the private homes were also turned into 
wells of instruction so that Jose ben Joezer of Zeredak could 
say truly, "Let thy house be a meeting-place for the wise; sit 
amidst the dust of their feet and drink their words with 
thirst." Everywhere, little bands of men grouped themselves 
together for instruction in the law and in higher studies, 
forming the original Chautauqua circles. By the Maccabean 
Era, elementary education was accessible to all, so that we 
can appreciate the conclusion of Wellhausen, "Whoever 
could not read was no true Jew," (Isr. u Jud. Gesch. 159). 
With the Maccabean Era, the synagogue felt the impress of 
Greek philosophy. When the Jew met Greek, it was a clash 
of Jewish against Greek pedagogy, religious versus secular 
culture. Both ideals are dominant in the modern Educational 
Ideal. The problem of the future is the task of harmonizing 
them. 

IV. 

By whom was this exalted ideal of religious culture devel- 
oped? The teachers in the Bible are (a) the parents, (b) 
the levites, priests, psalmists, (c) the prophets, (d) the 
scribes, (e) the sages. 

(a) The parents are the first teachers (Ps. CXXVII, 3, 
CXXVIII, 3). They follow a curriculum born out of a rich 
fund of domestic experience, tradition and love. We can fol- 
low the babe as it is washed in water, salted and swaddled 
(Ezek. XVI, 4) ; how, if wealthy, it was turned over to nurses 
(Gen. XXIV, 59) ; how, if a boy, it entered into the covenant 



14 

of Israel on its eighth day and was named. The fortieth day 
called for an offering in his name, while the girl's was 
hroiight on her eig;htieth day. Then the babe was weaned 
at a family feast (Gen. XXI, 8, and I Sam. I, 24), during all 
of which time the full stamp of the loving parental soul was 
being impressed upon it. 

What can express the duty and n:iethod of parental educa- 
tion so clearly as these words, "Thou shalt teach them dili- 
gently unto thy children and thou shalt speak of them when 
thou sittest in thy house, when thou walkest by the way, when 
thou liest down and when thou risest up?" And what can 
express the absolqte duty of the child so succinctly as the 
classic fifth commandment and its law of reward? Surely 
the entire Sh'ma, the great Ten Words, the holidays, the 
forms and meanings of sacrifices, the choice of Israel, God's 
love^ protection and promises to him are the most essential 
elements in the earliest education of the child. Doubtless, 
too, the children were deeply impressed by their visit to the 
Temple to hear the reading of Deuteronomy by the King 
(Deut. XXXVI, 10-12). 

The strongest religious influence was the personality of the 
parents and the atmosphere of the home. The instinct of imi- 
tation fashions the sights, sounds and hourly experience into 
habits and items of conduct. If to the parent, the command 
"Ye shall be perfect as the Lord your God is perfect" is the 
"Imitatio Dei," to the child his hourly home-life brings the 
law of "Imitatio Parentis" (Gen. XIII, i and Deftt. II, 26). 

No days furnished more favorable occasions for parental 
instruction than did the holidays. Here the parent had his 
opportunity. Home-ceremonies would arouse the curiosity of 
children and win from them numerous questions. And the 
parent is to welcome such interest and inquiry and never say 
"Wait until you are older before I can explain to you the Ex- 
odus from Egypt or the Giving of the Law." Your welcom- 
ing the inquiry calls for your exercise of pedagogical com- 
m.on-sense. Fit your answers to the needs and mental capaci- 
ties of your children. Exodus XII, 26 presents such a reci- 
tation-hour during the Passover service. "And it shall come 
to pass, when your children shall say unto you, what mean 
ye by this service, then shall ye say Tt is the sacrifice of the 
Lord's passover.' " So in XIII, 8 "And thou shalt show thy 
son in that day, saying 'This is done because of that which 
the Lord did unto me when I came forth from Egypt.' " So in 
verse 14 and Deut. VI, 20 shall the children be thus trained 



15 

10 consider themselves as part of this people and to feel the 
responsibility thereof. 

The parents must seize the symbols as valuable pedagogic 
pegs. For the Passover (Ex. XIII, 9 and 16) "Shall be for a 
sisTii unto thee upon thy hand and for memorial between thine 
eyes." So the Sh'ma adds the lesson "Thou shalt bind them 
as a sign upon thy hand and they shall be as frontlets between 
thy eyes." The frequent recurrence of these phrases indi- 
cates Vneir use and their function in the home — curriculum. 

These symbols taught by the avenue of the eye ; yet it w^as 
the heart "whence flowed the issues of life" (Prov. IV, 23) 
and upon which was lavished all the wealth of care. The law 
is to be "loved with all your heart and soul." The child must 
recognize the equal authority of father and mother and its 
very highest obligation of obedience. "My son, keep thy 
father's commandmant, and forsake not the law of thy 
mother." (Prov. VI, 20). But this duty ought to be a heart- 
duty and an unforgettable duty. "Bind them continually 
upon thy heart and tie them about thy neck. When thou ' 
goest, it shall lead thee ; when thou sleepest it shall keep thee. 
When thou wakest, it shall talk with thee." (Prov. VI, 21). 
Surely, the influence of the mother must have been immeasur- 
ably great. In addition to the religious training, she taught 
her girls weaving and spinning (Ex. XXXV, 25) and the 
domestic rounds of accomplishment of those days. A moth- 
er's instruction is still preserved for us in Prov. XXXI, "the 
v/ords of King Lemuel, the prophesy which his mother taught 
him," and the description of the ideal woman is a tribute to 
his own mother and to Jewish womanhood in general. Doubt- 
less, she taught them prayers. Deut. XXVI preserves two 
prayers for us. Isaiah says "What availeth me the multitude 
of your prayers?" What those prayers were we know not. 
The word "Amen" abounds so very frequently and must have 
been the usual close of prayers in the early days. We find 
"Amen" used in Num. V, 22; Deut. V, 15; XXVII, a dozen 
times; Neh. VIII, 6; Ps. CVI; Chr. XVI, 36; Ps. XLI, 14; 
LXXXIX, 53, as liturgical formula; and it presupposes the 
existence of short prayers with the amen as its conclusion. 
Its ironical use in Jer. XXVIII, 6, and recurrence in Kings 
I, 36 and Neh. V, 13 as an emphatic expression of assent only 
argues the widespread use of the -word "Amen." 

The instruction was oral, and if attention and good behav- 
ior were not secured, the rod was brought into frequent usage. 
- The boys and girls of the Bible days were not mollycoddled. 



16 

Absolute obedience was the prime essential duty of childhood. 
If the child cursed his father or mother, (Deut. XXVII, i6; 
Ex. XXI, 15; Lev. XX, 9) death was pronounced upon it. 
Death is the penalty for smiting a parent (Ex. XXI, 15), 
while "he that setteth light by his father or his mother" is pro- 
nounced accursed," (Deut. XXVII, 16). If the child was 
incorrigible a "ben sorer umorer," and had refused persist- 
ently to obey his parents, he is to be brought by his parents 
and publicly arraigned before the elders of the city and stoned 
to death. (Deut. XX, 18-21). This is the real origin of the 
Juvenile Court, but with an unmitigated severity. Yet it must 
be remembered that the parent had not, as in Rome, the pow- 
er of life and death over his son. When insubordination be- 
came intolerable, he could not take the law into his own 
hands; he must appeal to the decision of an impartial tri- 
bunal. That this punishment of the incorrigible could not 
have been of frequent occurrence even in the Bible Era is 
clear from Prov. XXX, 17, where disobedience to parents is 
cited as a thing which brings a man to a bad end, not as 1 
thing punished by death. 

When the parents could afiford it, they would entrust the 
further and higher education of their children to priests, le- 
vites (Deut. XXXI, 9; Joshua IX, 34) or tutors (II Kings X, 
i), which, during and after the exile, was a very common 
practice. 

(b) Our knowledge of the educational function of the 
levite, priest and psalmist leaves very much to be desired, and 
yet they must have been strong factors in moulding the relig- 
ious life of ancient Israel. It is a pity that we cannot know 
in how close a contact they came with the home, the parent, 
tlie child. I am inclined to say that their educational work 
must have been less direct upon the child and the home but 
more direct upon the community as a community. I shall 
omit all consideration of biblical criticism on the indefinite- 
ness of the position and relation of levite to priest, and of the 
exaggerated opposition between priest and prophet. I feel 
that an institution like the priesthood whose function became 
the acknowledged missionary ideal of a people must have 
wielded a tremendous force for good and for learning. Aside 
from the purely ecclesiastical labors of the levite and priest, 
such as carrying the ark of the covenant, presiding over sac- 
rifices and worship, acting as doorkeepers and pronouncing 
the benedictions, they were administrators, guardians and 
tea<^ers of the law. 



17 

"They show Jacob Thy Judgments 
And Israel Thy Law."— (Deut. XXXIII, ^). 

In Jeremiah VIII, 8, theirs is the power to decide in accord- 
ance with the principles of "the law of which they are the 
guardians." In II Kings XVII, 27, the priest is the educator. 
In Jeremiah XVIII we read "The law shall not perish from 
the priest nor counsel from the wise." Chaggai II is told by 
God to consult the priests. Supervision of leprosy is in their 
hands (Deut. XXIV, 8) ; they are to address the hosts as 
they go forth to battle (Deut. XX, 26) ; they are to be con- 
sulted in difficult law-suits (Deut. XVII, 8) and see as to the 
preservation of the laws (Deut. XVII, 18 and V, 26). In the 
reform work under Jehosaphat the leaders are priests (II 
Chr. XVIII). In Leviticus X, 10 we read "they teach the 
law of leprosy." And in Micah III, 1 1 the priests are scolded 
for "teaching for hire," "while the prophets divine for 
money." Nehemiah VIII recognizes the priests and levites 
as the actual and practical expounders of the Law. That two 
great prophets, Jeremiah the preacher of Individualism and 
Ezekiel the exponent of Solidarity were also priests adds im 
measurably to the stature of the ideal priesthood. This ideal 
priesthood is stated exquisitely in Malachi II who, after re- 
buking "the priests who despise My name," says : 

"The Law of truth was in his mouth. 
And iniquity was not found on his lips, 
He walked with Me in peace and equity, 
And did turn many away from sin. 
For the priests' lips should keep knowledge, 
And they should seek the law at his mouth. 
For he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts." 

We are most anxious to know how the priests exercised 
these educational functions so that they could turn many from 
sin, and how many sought wisdom from their lips. At any 
rate, enough proof has been brought forth to show that by 
the period of the Exile the priests represented the purely 
ritual and intellectual phases of worship and religion. Natur- 
ally, then, they were the conservators of the status and dig- 
nity of the religious life ; and their main appeal was to tradi- 
tion, sentiment and the inviolable sanctities of the godlike 
institutions. 



18 

But is this all that can be said of them ? Were they only 
sticklers for the cold majesty of the law, ceremonial or judi- 
cial? Had they nothing to do with the Psalms, those sweet 
intimate dialogues of the soul with God? Prophetic teach- 
ings abound in the Psalms; can it be that the priests were un- 
affected by them, failed to appreciate and appropriate them ? 
The Psalms are full of reference to worship, ritual, prayer, 
feast, sacrifice, sin and temple, all of which represent priestly 
activity, so that much of the composition may be attributed 
to priests or guilds of priests. Nor should it be forgotten 
that the last Psalms were completed when the voice of the 
prophet could no longer be heard in the land. 

For a thorough appreciation of the "Priestly element in 
the Old Testament" I refer you to Harper's. The Psalter 
is a Book of Prayer, a Book of Praise and a Manual of Per- 
sonal Communion with God. The late professor Harper puts 
these questions with reference to the composition and nature 
of the Psalter, ''Could a priestly system including as its cli- 
max a hymnal breathing a devotion so rich, be wholly formal 
and mechanical, devoid of life and of spiritual power ? Could 
such a hymnal have owed its origin to a body of priests who 
were strangers to the spiritual and altogether slaves of the 
formal?" Can we, now, answer these questions, ''What was 
the educational function of the priest in his many-sided capac- 
ity? What feelings and ideas were stirred in the people as 
they saw the white-robed priest officiating in bloody sacrifice? 
Did the worshipper construe the sacrifices symbolically? W^as 
there a deepening of his sense of sin, a sincere craving for 
pardon, a closer drawing to the heart of God ? Were the peo- 
ple educated through the priestly performances ? Did the con- 
stantly repeated ceremonies have any ethical effect ? In what 
sense was the Temple a laboratory for developing character 
and for purifying the communion of the individual with God ? 
Was the meaning of life heightened by the knowledge of the 
law ? Did the habitual doing of the ceremony or its constant 
sight have a ])edagogic value ? Did the reading of the Psalms 
familiarize them with the Psalm of Life? Was the appeal 
altogether to the nation and not to the individual ? Was wor- 
ship not a powerful tie, a union and a communion of mutual 
interests, a strengthening of the ideal of the people? Was not 
the home thereby influenced when for sacrifice it had a Psalter 
where religion was more inward? And thus construed, did 
the many-sided, educating priest not keep alive the mission- 
ary idea of Israel as a Kingdom of priests and a holy people'' 



19 

The priest, for this is my conclusion on this subject, was ( i ) 
the teacher of the majesty and the hoHness of God and of the 
means in sacrifice and in prayer whereby man might draw 
near God. (2) He was the teacher of God's specific Law 
whereby man is to learn to lead the holy and priestly life 
(3) He taught not by the hortatory, objective method of the 
prophet or the sage. His influence was subjective according 
as each worshipper interpreted the symbol, the ceremony 
and the psalm. (4) He taught by emphasis upon the neces- 
sity and integrity of tradition. His appeal was not so much 
to the conscience as to the feelings, not to the imagination as 
to the emotions. He stood as the exponent of tradition, the 
life-blood of continuity and of the spiritual experience called 
Faith. 

(c) The prophets as educators ought to form a series of 
monographs, and I can only give a few cursory sentiment^ 
as to their power and function in the educational life. The 
school of the prophets, in the technical sense, took its rise in 
the days of Samuel. 

These prophets were wandering revivalists, enthusiasts 
and singers, and they did but scant credit to the great masters 
who followed them. They formed schools and guilds and lo- 
cated themselves in Ramah I S XIX, 18, Gilgal (H K IV, 38), 
Bethel (II K II 3), Jericho (II K II 5) and in Gibeah and 
Mt. Ephraim. They traveled from place to place, creating 
what might be called ''Circuit Preaching." They taught 
music (II Chr. XXIII, 13), studied the history of early days 
and composed songs for special occasions (I S X 5, 6, 10, 
XIII 23, XIX 18, I Chr. XXV, 8). We cannot speak with 
much definiteness about their labors ; yet their value lay in the 
fact that they made possible the emergence of the majestic 
figures of Samuel, Nathan, Gad, Elijah and Elisha, to be fol- 
lowed by Isaiah, Jerem.iah and Ezekiel and the minor proph- 
ets, the lordliest band of teachers which any age has yet pro- 
duced. 

Prophecy was an educational movement which Israel called 
out of his own heart for his own direction, instruction, purifi- 
cation and enlargement. Like no other force, it has stirred 
the conscience with its direct, though blunt appeal. It strip- 
ped ofi all pretence and precedent. Prophecy was the force 
that always said, "Thou art the man !" Prophecy was the force 
of opposition for progress' sake, the force of protest for pur- 
^ ity's sake. It read out the book of universal experience the 



20 

laws for particular situations. It had vision, grasp, enthus- 
iasm, faith, power, holiness. 

The prophets graduated from no school but took their cre- 
dentials from God. Wherever men were, there was their 
message. Where unrighteousness lurked, there was their 
platform. Kings and queens, rich and poor, aye, the whole 
nation goes to school to them. They inaugurate compulsory 
education for prince and public. Now they thunder like Elijah 
and Amos ; now they plead like Hosea and Jeremiah. Now 
they are poets and mystics; and now as cold moralists they 
come to view. But one thing above all ; they speak in no ab- 
stract manner. The people all know what they are driving 
at. They lay down a proposition, or a series of self evident 
truths. They bring illustrations from Egypt and Assyria, 
from Babylonia and Persia. They find vocabulary and sym- 
bolism in court and camp, in farm and altar. They speak 
out of the fullness of their hearts ; they neither apologize nor 
await agreement. Conscious that they are in agreement with 
God and His truth, they think not of physical or material sue - 
cess. In the enthusiasm of their cause and in their indiffer- 
ence to popularity they never lose their sanity. 

They are eloquent exponents of religious culture. They 
believe in the training of the mind ; but the highest knowledge 
is of the existence of God, of His relation to humanity, of 
men's duties to one another. They admire nature, but nature 
is but God's theatre of daily revelation. They know history, 
but the comings and goings of nations and of kingdoms are 
but the means whereby God educates the race. Theirs, too, 
is an appreciation of beauty, but beauty of form, of style, of 
image is but incidental to the beauty of holiness. Nor do 
they look askance at strength, but they do insist, "Let not the 
wise glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty glory in his 
might, let not the rich glory in his riches, but let him who will 
boast, boast of this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me," 
etc. (Jeremiah IX, 23 and 24). Their philosophy is the phil- 
osophy of Life ; yet they say to you and to me : 

''What does the Lord ask of you?" 

No platform or book stands between them and their listen- 
ers. They carry their school with them wherever they go 
They aim to touch the conscience. They are not guided so nmch 
by what is, as by what ought to be. They protest and scold 
in order to purify and make religion more inward, more per- 
sonal, more righteous. The dignity of the individual con- 
science is as powerful an ideal to them as the majesty of God. 



21 

They know of the filthiness of sin but they would have theu* 
pupils reahze this truth in all its implications. They know the 
necessity of ceremony but they would have man go direct to 
God for forgiveness. They educate by appeals to the history 
of the past, by present circumstances and by the future, sure 
to follow. They know the law of progress, and the inevitable 
result of immorality, idolatry, h3/pocrisy and injustice. They 
represent the ideal of the Orator. They speak not for rhetor- 
ic's sake, but as the spokesman of God. They speak because 
they must, nor do they hesitate to create a literary vehicle to 
present adequately their message. Who will ever be able to 
estimate justly the educational power of the Hebrew prophets 
from Moses to Malachi ? 

The prophets built upon the foundation laid by Moses, the 
first and the greatest of prophets. Man is made in the imags:' 
of God ; but Judaism bears the stamp of Moses. Moses' edu- 
cational work covers the whole field of personal, domestic, 
social and national life. He is the pedagogue par excellence. 
But his greatest educational asset is his own matchless per- 
sonality. He taught by the power of tremendous and impres- 
sive example. Moses was an educator, by the grace of God, 
large in vision and deep in sympathy, of inexhaustible 
patience and unexampled resourcefulness. Moses was an 
educator, idealist of the highest order but the sanest, soundest 
practical teacher the world has known. Moses was an 
educator who fed his people according to their needs and 
mental capacities. He was an educator who knew his people 
intimately, understood their frailties no less than their 
strength and led them slowly but securely as the great distant 
purpose flooded his mind. Moses was an educator of the high- 
est moral integrity, yet never self-righteous; of the widest 
culture, yet never self-opiniated ; conscious of his mission and 
leadership, yet never consumed by the lust for power and 
profit. Moses was an educator who, familiar with Egyptian 
lore, passes by the Osiris and the gods of Egypt, and posits as 
the Source of all knowledge, the Ground of all Being, the 
Fountain of all Life and the Inspiration of all morality, the 
One, only and alone Jehovah, holy, loving, compassionate, 
righteous, wise, the Father and Teacher of the race. He was 
an educator who saw the necessity of such holy ideal for the 
training of a people and the absolute necessity of religion for 
the development of its life and destiny. He taught, then, that 
the national ideal must be a patterning after the God-ideal, un 
marred by intermediary and selfish idols. He taught that the 



22 

best place for the cultivation and perpetuity of that doctrine 
was the home — and that the best teachers were father and 
mother, and that the best law thereof was the child's happy 
and implicit obedience. He made the entire machinery of 
education, administration, philanthropy, worship, agricul- 
ture, revolve as spokes in the hub of religious education for 
the moral and spiritual life of the nation. 

Moses was an educator who saw God face to face ; he mei 
his people and truth lace to face for forty years. He fashion- 
ed a nation; and dying on Mt. Nebo, the mountain of proph- 
ecy, his name became a household inspiration, passing down 
in enhanced affection from mother to son unto the thousand 
generations. 

(d) The work of the psalmists and the prophets might 
have been lost to the world were it not for another class of 
educators, called the Scribes. We hear of the scribes long 
before the 6th century B. C, but mostly serving as secretaries 
or chroniclers. Ezra the prince of scribes (Ezra VH, 6) gave 
them their new function. They formed guilds (I Chr. H, 55 ; 
I Chr. XXV, 86). Nehemiah called thein "M'binim," and they 
certainly were the literati of the*period. They were a class 
by themselves, and vvere largely recruited from the priests and 
levites. They vv^ere the best trained and educated men in their 
day. The times gave birth to their new energies. The proph- 
et's voice was growing weaker, while the daw^n of the 
"Church" was at hand. The work of Nehemiah, the reform- 
er, paved the way for Ezra, the ecclesiastic. Ezra tells us, 
V^T, 10, "For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of 
the Lord and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judg"- 
ments." The eighth to tenth chapters of the book of Nehe- 
miah present to our view the great educational feature of that 
epoch, the promulg-ation and formal adoption of a new guide. 
This formal adoption of the Law took place at a public assem- 
bly of all the people and it was in the same method of pro- 
cedure that the Deuteronomic Code was accepted. The Law 
was read aloud in the hearing of all. Thirteen kvites ex- 
plained the text. The people undersood it all and wept. A 
deep sense of sin brought the people to their knees. A solemn 
covenant was entered into by all to observe the Law, and it 
was signed by the people's representative. A people had wil- 
lingly, publicly adopted a new Magna Charta. .,, 

Educationally, what did this mean? Ezra, standing on the 
raised platform, had the largest Sabbath School ill our his- 
tory. All Israel sat at his feet. Henceforth, the nAv teacher 



had a great text-book. The multiplication of this book, thus 
preserving in unity the history, the prophets and the Psahiis 
(current up to that day) v/as made possible by the Scribes. 
Thus it happened that copies of the Law and of the nation's 
hymn-book came into more general use; and thus families 
obtained possession of them. 

The birth of the Synagogue added immeasurably to the 
popularization of knowledge. The exile proved that the 
Temple and its sacrificial altar v/ere not Vvdiolly indispensable. 
Psalm LXXIV proves the existence of many Synagogues 
during the exile ; yet if this Psalm happens to be post-exilic 
the constant references to bodies of men coming to Ezekiel, 
VIII, I ; XIV, XXXIII for instruction carries the belief that 
the people were not homeless during the Exile. At any rate, 
the return of the people back to Jerusalem found the Temple 
again the center of the sacrificial system but along side of it 
flourished the Synagogue. Wherever a few Jews settled who 
wished to study the law a synagogue was organized. They 
also supplied the religious needs of the many Jews scattered 
in many lands who were unable to make frequent visits to 
Jerusalem. The synagogue v/as a place for communal prayer 
and for study, more democratic and closer to the heart of the 
people than the temple. It v/as in the synagogue that the peo- 
ple's religious consciousness and unity could be expressed 
and maintained spart from the Temple. I have not the time 
to enter into the new Prayer book v/hich grew out of the s}^- 
agogue in course of time but its tremendous significance can 
be seen from the saying of Simon the Just (300 B. C.) "Our 
fathers have taught us three things, to be cautious in judging, 
to train many scholars and to set a fence about the law." 

The educational significance of the synagogue, then, in con- 
nection with the Scribe becomes apparent. It was through 
Ezra and the Scribes that the Jev/ became in the words of Mo- 
hammed, "The People of the Book." The growth of the 
synagogues compelled an ever increasing multiplication of 
copies of the law ; and the reaction of this upon the homes can 
be seen at a glance. As the scriptures became m_ore popular, 
the demand for teachers was more insistent. "The commun- 
ity as a whole became more unselfishly interested in it than 
in the official hierarchy ; the people began to raise apt teachers 
out of -its own ranks." (Montefiore HIB. Lectures p. 395). 
The Rabbis, Schools of Pharisees and the Talmudic Era are 
children of this pregnant Educational Era. 

The Psalm-book, the Prayer-book, the Law-book became 



24 

domesticated and were a more satisfying means of religious 
aspiration than sacrifice and Temple. The synagogue democ- 
ratized religion. It individualized religion; and the latter 
gained in depth, inwardness and clarity. The synagogue was 
alive. There was no sterility there, and its religion expressed 
itself in many ways. This same age saw the last of the 
Psalmist, and the books of Ruth and Jonah came into the 
canon. The scribe as an educator is the preserver and multi- 
plier of the literary means of education. He was a purely lit- 
erary man. Most of the Bible in its final touches shovv^s his 
marks. He collated, revised, interpolated, copied, edited and 
used the Editorial blue pencil. He was the arbiter of literary 
taste. 

(e) Now let us consider for a moment a fifth class of men, 
to whom the word "teacher" in its specific modern meaning- 
would apply with more justice than to any of the preceding 
groups. The time was ripe for teachers. The phrase "teach- 
er as the scholar" occurs in I Chr. XXV, 8b. These men are 
called the scholars "Chachamin," the wisemen, the sages, and 
their ideas, principles and literary productions were framed 
in the Books of Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Ben Sirach 
(though the last named is not used in the Bible). The varied 
group of educators whom we have reviewed made their ap- 
peal to tradition, emotion, conscience ; but the sages were the 
first to ask for the recognition of common sense and the ap- 
proval of the intellect. They represented beauty of culture, 
per se, yet in no wise depreciating the necessity and the prior 
claim of religious culture. It may truthfully be said that they 
came closest to the hearts of the parents and the children. 

The calm of philosophy requires a state of political tran- 
quility for its successful developm.ent. Such an age inter- 
vened between the post-Nehemian age and the time when the 
danger of seductive Hellenism hove in sight. This was the 
time for reflection and cold moralism. It was the fittest time 
for systematic instruction, not for the spasmodic teaching of 
prophet and psalmist. The sage knew the message of the 
home, the priest, the psalmist, the prophet and the scribe. He 
was a product of all these forces. Thus, he found his mater- 
ial in their messages. He was the popularizer in homely and 
sententious words of the religion of the day. He came to the 
level of the masses and brought learning direct to their door- 
steps. It was the task of the sage to bring the minds of the 
people into sympathy with the prophetic teaching. Much of 
their teaching is utilitarian and prudential wisdom. Not held 



25 

down to any one book they could rely upon their native tact 
and talent, iliey were not burdened by a calling from on high ; 
they did not need to scold and oppose. They were familiar 
wih history and literature; and they could find ready illustra- 
tions lying in daily experiences. They were familiar with the 
floating wisdom, proverbs, gnomes, and built upon them more 
stately philosophy. They were moralists, but never degener- 
ated into sophists. They invariably threw their maxims into 
parallelistic forms so as to have been easier fixed in popular 
memory. Ben Sirach XXXVIII, 24, XXXIX, assumes the 
existence of systematic instruction, in which the study of lit- 
erature played an important part. So in Proverbs XII, 17-21, 
V, 13, we divine something of a school organization, Ben 
Sirach teaches in his epilogue, 

"Draw near to me, ye unlearned. 
And lodge in the house of instruction." 
What did they teach in these houses of instruction or in the 
broad open spaces or private homes ? It should be observed 
that they followed all their predecessors in taking a healthy 
and sane view of life. Life is a gift from God and yet life is 
a discipline. 

Family life comes in for special consideration. "Their ideal 
of family life is high ; monogamy is assumed, parents are the 
responsible guides of their children and entitled to their obe- 
dience and respect. Woman is spoken of as wife, mother and 
housewife. She is a power in the house, capable of making 
home happy or miserable. She has not only housekeeping 
capacity but also broad wisdom. Her position is as high as 
any accorded her in ancient life." (Toy's Proverbs, Int. Crit. 
Com. XII). Parents are the first teachers (Prov. I, 8; IV, 
1-4; VI, 20). They advise parents to study their children 
carefully, watch their play and activities so as to be able to 
shape their character. (Prov XX, 2). The child's nature 
should be studied (Prov. XX, 6), nor need the correcting rod 
be withheld (Prov. XIII, i, 8, 24; XIX, 18). After the par- 
ents have done their duty it is well to send their children to 
professional teachers (Prov. V, 13) whose words are a foun- 
tain of life (Prov. XIII, 14), and whose greatest joy is the 
pupil's progress. 

In general and specific terms the sages counsel the need of 
chastity, diligence, sobriety, prudence, honesty, justice, loy- 
alty to the poor, generosity to enemies, capacity for friend- 
ship, the systematic avoidance of anger, sloth, malice, folly, 
perjury and theft, and in all things to follow the law of God,' 



26 

which is Wisdom, the essence of Rehgion. This law was the 
Will of God. The law was alive. It was a personal posses- 
sion, a personal joy, a loving link between God and man. It 
had become spiritualized into a Passion, called Wisdom. 
Blessed were its teachers and its profession. So exalted had 
this teachership risen that it expressed itself in the w^armth 
and glow of Daniel's phrase, "And they that be wise shall 
shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn 
many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever. But, 
thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to 
llie time of the end. Many shall run to and fro and knowl- 
edge shall be increased." (Daniel XII, 3 and 4). 

The only seemingly discordant note in the Wisdom Litera- 
ture to the joyous optimism of the sage is struck by Ecclesias- 
tes and Job. These two are lonely, solitary figures, yet never 
despondents. Proverbs and Ben Sirach contain disconnected 
and practical reflections and observations. Job and Ecclesi- 
astes are philosophers. The former two consider the general 
question as to what is good and right in life and practice. The 
two latter inquire as to the Chief Good. Yet all four build 
their message on, and reach their conclusions in, God as the 
source and guarantee of all life, religion and happiness. 
Ecclesiastes and Job may suffer momentary doubt, but never 
do they lodge in agnosticism or despair. 

God-conscioiisncss is the underlying dynamic and inspir- 
iting phrase which combines the wisdom of the sage with the 
righteousness of the prophet, the culture of the scribe with 
the faith of the priest and the love of the parent. Each age 
grasped a new method, placed a new stress, emphasized a new 
principle of the fundamental God-Consciousness in and for 
the nation. Yet this is the link which binds home and Torah, 
Temple and Synagogue and floods them all with divine light. 
It is the interpretive principle in our history. Each age 
grasped an aspect of this progressive truth. But the God- 
Consciousness was not an end in itself. Its aim was the pur- 
suit and promise and pledge of a godly and consecrated life. 
To achieve this great end is the purpose of Religious Culture. 
To attain it parents, priests, prophets, scribes and sages have 
given themselves to the formation of its curriculum in i.soo 
years. It is our educational ideal. The testimony of the Bible 
is that this is the diploma of the Jews' teachership in the 
world. 



27 
V. 

What are the principles and methods of education in our 
Bible which admit of modern application ? Here we must be 
on our guard. Well defined and scientific principles do not 
exist in the Bible. It is stupid to attempt to translate psycho- 
logical words like spirit, soul, mind, flesh and heart from our 
Bible into modern technical terminology. It is foolish to in- 
ject \Mlliam James into Jeremiah. What we can do is, by fol- 
lowing the course of historical development of religious cul- 
ture in the Biblical Era, to frame a few propositions wherein 
all agree. 

Were I, then, asked ''^^"hat is the moral of fifteen hundred 
years of biblical education?" I should embody them in these 
truths : 

(a) Every child is educable and has an inherent right to 
the knowledge and love of God. 

(b) Every child is entitled to the rich heritage of his 
fathers as it has been progressively harvested. 

(c) The knowledge of God as it has been enunciated, am- 
plified and lived out in history is for the ennoblement and 
consecration of life. 

(d) Knowledge of God and Consecration of Life are not 
two separate but two complementary aspects of one truth. 

(e) The attainment of this truth as Religious Culture is 
the Educational Ideal of Scriptures. 

(f ) Such religious culture is essentially domestic. 

(g) In this culture, roughly speaking, parents, priests, 
prophets, scribes and sages have emphasized the ingredients 
of obedience, emotion, conscience, art and intellect. 

(h) Religious Culture does not mean the rejection but the 
assimilation of other cultures. 

Accepting these fundamental propositions, there follow 
these principles and methods as answers to the question, 
*'How can we best attain the fullness of Religious Culture?" 

( I ) Religious Culture is primarily home-made and home- 
grown. Its most natural soil is the soul of domesticity. All 
are agreed that the home is the best place, and the parent the 
best teacher of life's ideal. There is no need to dilate on this 
self-evident fact. Whatever other nations and races • may 
have said and done, the Biblical Era has its unanimous ver- 
dict on the beauty, utility and duty of domestic training. Here 
the child gathers its first impressions of religion. Here ining 
ination is stirred, emotion aroused, conscience pricked aiiJ 



28 

habit formed. Here are living and daily examples to be imita- 
ted, and here God comes into child-consciousness. The home, 
doing its full duty, leaves no room for a Sabbath School, 
save as it is included in other necessary and professional 
schools for extra-domestic instruction. The Sabbath School 
is a modern growth, and is simply a confession of parental in- 
efficiency in this matter. Religious training in the Sabbath 
School suffers instinctively from theorizing, while in the Pub- 
lic School its justification is missionary. Be it said, however, 
that were the Biblical teachers conscious of local conditions in 
this century of transition, they would advise additional and 
supplementary schools, not to compete with, but to complete 
the natural functions of parental teachership. 

(2) In the home and in the Sabbath School w^e need the 
emphasis upon faith and loyalty. The parent was helped by 
the priest. Childhood needs the blossom of faith and the 
bloom of loyalty. Childhood believes, and faith, aided by 
fertile imagination, is its working intellect. Its faith fills its 
little universe w^ith personalities ; they exist for the child and 
have reality for it. Teachers must appeal to its strong faith, 
give it content and stability, and fill it w4th the moving Pres- 
ence of God. The child has a reservoir of emotion. Wlien 
the priests came, they filled the home with tangible objects 
about which their faith could be entwined. Prayer, ceremon- 
ial, holiday, sacrifice, temple, these were their food. Children 
to-day need this same food, properly administered. 

But the real purpose of this faith and feeling is for the 
strengthening of tradition. Only the stupid will sneer at 
tradition. The student know^s that tradition is the life-blood 
of institutions and families. A traditionless home is aenemic. 
Tradition is the possibility of progress, the conservation of 
faith and feeling, of memories and heroisms and tragedies of 
the past. Israel glories in his traditions. Loyalty to, and 
pride in them, is the lesson of Biblical education. Not too 
early can we begin to teach this to our children. 

This is the keynote of Jewish Consciousness. One great 
conviction ties him forever to the Abraham who heard God's 
voice thirty-seven centuries ago. 

Incidentally, this explains why we Jews do not require the 
specific training in religion in the public schools. A religious 
training that is not spun on the loom of tradition is already 
threadbare. Tradition is weak in Christian homes. Christian 
Sunday Schools, and in our public schools. Therefore, I am 
urgeeat that this idea of tradition, woven in faith and emotion, 



29 

shall be steadily insisted upon in the home, in the Sabbath 
School and in the pulpit. The Bible and our whole history 
and our religious institutionalism offer splendid and inspirit- 
ing characters and incidents to give content and direction to 
it. That reason, and that alone, justifies the retention of 
Hebrew in our curricula and in our Synagogal worship. 

(3) An excessive harping on this string may produce an 
ethical discord. The oi'ficialism of the priest is sure to meet 
the rebuke of the courageous prophet. Emotion unchained 
and undirected, faith degenerating into blind credulity, tradi 
tion losing itself in a blatant Chauvinism or a stereotyped 
Kaddish-loyalty are to be deplored. Thus, home and religious 
school should be especially concerned that religious culture 
should work conscience into the life of faith. Ceremonialism 
does not arg^ue sinceritv; nor does religiousness mean char- 
acter. "\\'ash ye, make yourselves clean," is the moral bill 
of health. W'e must teach religion as a part of life. \\^e must 
show that a child no less than a man cannot be morally bad 
and religiously good at the same time. We must make re- 
ligion stand for personal purity, and put conviction into our 
traditions. We must be Jews; but but we must know why 
we sponsor these teachings. We must acquire the courage to 
do right, to condemn wrong; and, at the same time, to put 
our faith into our deed. Our religion must point our duties 
to our fellow men and make God more real to us. The Bible 
and our subsequent history present magnificent examples of 
the prophetic ideal. The heroism of the prophet matches the 
heroism of the priest. Religious culture which is bereft of a 
strong sense of duty and of courage to be righteous is back- 
boneless. 

(4) Oral instruction is not sufficient in itself in completely 
fulfilling the demands of love, faith and conscience. The 
scribe preserved psalmody and prophecy in a Torah, and 
since then the teacher had a text-book. The learning of the 
ages must be crystallized and preserved. This can become an 
authoritative guide, if it bear the impress of divine contact. 
W^hen the Torah came, education by text-book was .Jewishly 
justified. Home and Sabbath School are fortunate in possess- 
ing the preserved treasures of Israel's heroic past. They can 
have no better manual for the cultivation of the religious 
spirit than by a ceaseless love for it, an abiding loyalty to it, 
a hearty compliance with its law^s and a systematic. reading 
of its pages. If the home and the Sabbath School hold to 
this task the reading of our Bible in the public school need 



30 

not be our request. Its literary value, its moral emphasis, its 
spiritual message can be ours at mother's knee. We, alas, 
do not handle our Bible, and much of our loving obedience, 
faith and conscience lack the ballast of consistency, courage 
and conviction because of this failure of reenforcement in the 
home and school. The spirit of the scribe is dormant in us. 
And if the complaint is true that Jews are not devouring 
Jewish literature, the reason thereof croucheth at our doors. 
The art of literature Vv-as once a strong Jewish passion. 

(5) Religious culture will not suffer if it receives breadth. 
It ought to include intellectual stimulus and the joys of wider 
outlooks and higher mental reaches. The sage saw real life, 
and its lessons were not lost on him. His intellectual grasp 
of the situation and his wider reading did not land him in 
doubt or agnosticism. Our religious culture need not fear, 
then, the warm breath of other cultures. 

If home and Sabbath School bring to children and pupils 
the seriousness, yet the joy of life, the discipline with its re- 
wards, if they encourage clear thinking on the problems of 
sorrow, suffering and death, with sane and healthy apprecia- 
tion of others' problems, religious culture will profit thereby. 
The lesson of the sage is worthy of our most mature con- 
sideration. 

The methods receiving the recommendations of the Bible 
educators for this training of obedience, tradition, character, 
study and intellect, are : 

( 1 ) Imitation : A child is a born mimic. Most of his 
mental development is what has become habituated by imita- 
tion. Set the child the best examples in your personalities 
as teachers or parents, and in the splendid literature at your 
command ! History is the best guide. 

(2) Interest: A child will quickest absorb what interests 
him most. This principle of Bain has the testimony of cen- 
turies behind him. Arouse the child's interest in holidays and 
institutions so that it will instinctively ask questions The 
asking of a question is a chord upon which a wise teacher 
will at once play. Constantly the question is put by the child : 
"What means this service?" 

(3) Study the child's nature. Every wise parent knows 
the dijBFerence in temperaments, endowments and natures of 
children. "Train up a child according to its nature, and when 
it is old it will not depart therefrom;" "Even a child makes 
himself known by his deeds (play) whether he will be good 
or bad," are familiar sayings of the sages. 



31 

(4) Feed the child according to its abihty to digest. It 
cannot appreciate the message of the sage unless it has first 
felt the throb of the prophet, nor will it understand the pro- 
phet unless the priestly fount of faith has first been opened. 

(5) Repetition is recommended. It makes memory pos- 
sible. It forms habit. The Hebrew says "Thou shalt teach 
them diligently." The Hebrew word r\y\^ means to 
teach by repetition through constant digging. Parallelism 
was used to fix an idea in the mind; acrostics had a similar 
saving grace. A people which has no text-book and feeds on 
tradition must rely on memory, sharpened through ages of 
repetition. 

(6) Text-book education is less direct than oral. The 
power thereof depends mostly on the ability of the teacher 
Teach rather through concrete objects than through theories 
and abstractions. 

(7) Make the child recognize your authority. Teach by 
kindness, though the power of severity is not to be slighted. 
Ideas must be drilled in by repetition and often sink in by 
rebuke. Under all circumstances, obedience is the sine qua 
non of the educative process. 

(8) Above all else, your own personality as a living and 
concrete illustration of your abiding faith, your spotless in- 
tegrity, your literary honesty, your sympathetic philosophy 
will be the finest example of the power of God in you for the 
cultivation of the religious spirit in others. 

VI. 

I can now sum up, hastily, the message which this Educa- 
tional Ideal has for our age. Religion is a natural need of the 
soul and demands cultivation. The time has past for apolo- 
gizing for the birth, growth and flowering of the spirit that 
thirsteth for the living God and His righteousness. Religion 
is the glow of God in childhood, the consecration and guaran- 
tee of national perpetuity. 

While religious culture may find its final flowering else- 
where, its true, natural and best garden is in the home. A 
relio-ionless home is a misfortune. A religionless nation is 
bloodless. A religionless education is one-sided. The State 
must see that the educational agency of the home is not super- 
seded. The State is made up of families and there the affec- 
tions and sentiments of individuals receive their hearty sup- 
port. There life receives its dower and its consecration, and 



32 

there the State renews itself. 

Truth, beauty and goodness are the ideals of science, art 
and ethics. Religion posits God as the Source of truth, beauty 
and goodness. It harmonizes, it sanctifies them all to human 
endeavors. It says to these ideals, "Blessed be ye in the name 
of God. We bless you from the house of God." 



II. ESSAY. 



The Principle of Jevcrish Education in the 
Rabbinical Era. 

It is not difficult to co-ordinate the conception and the prac- 
tice of bibHcal with rabbinical education. It is not my pur- 
pose, however, to give a history of education during the Tal- 
mudic and Middle Ages, but to show that the course of the 
Educational Ideal in Israel follows a continuous, consistent 
and constructive line of development. This vast stretch of 
centuries, so far as Education in Israel is concerned, is 
marked by five phenomena : 
(a) The Growth of Individualism. 

The growth of individualism was coincident with the loss 
of nationality. Mosaism and Prophetism planned for the 
training of a people, a nation ; their methods revolved about 
a social and a national ideal. The Exile gave birth to the 
first announcement of the dignity and responsibility of the 
individual in the messages of Jeremiah and Ezekiel; but it 
was not until the synagogue democratized religion that the 
individual came to his own. The destruction of the Temple 
found the synagogue prepared to bridge the yawning chasm. 
Education was the bridge thus utilized. The Temple was in 
ruins ; the pendulum swung to the individual, and Pharisaism 
catching the inspiration from the synagogue, clothed each in- 
dividual with all the dignity and dower of the priest. It is 
queer how Christian scholars have persistently exaggerated 
the opposition between the priest and the prophet, and have 
minimized the people's battle between Sadduceism and Phar- 
isaism. Pharisaism made each one a priest, and thus numer- 
ous ceremonies calling for the individual's sacrifice and loy- 
alty, surrounding his whole day with the mantle and respon- 
sibility of priestliness, became the means and the measure of 
the educational Ideal. The old educational ideal had not 
changed; it only received a new emphasis on the individual 
side. It zvas the training of the individual, not for citizenship 

33 



34 

in a nation, but in a Kingdom of God, in a Kingdom of 
Priests. 

As a result, tradition and history, everything secular and 
educational became religious. A knowledge of the oral and 
the written Laws became absolutely essential to the definition 
of holiness and to the minutest qualifications of the new citi- 
zenship. The study of the Law became the individual's high- 
est obligation. "It was superior to all." (IMishna Pea I, i). 
Thus law and worship became almost synonymous terms. 
Torah came to mean not Law but Learning; not Learning- 
alone but Life. "The study of the Law is important because 
it leads to good conduct." (Kid. 40b). "He whose good acts 
exceed his wisdom will see his wisdom endure." (Pirke Abot, 
III, 12). Here, then, we find that the educational ideal of the 
knowledge of God for the consecration of life had not lost its 
virility. The Temple was gone; and the Jew began his his 
toric mission of Salvation by Education. 

(b) The Hallowing of the Home. 

The home was the first to feel the responsibility of the loss 
of the Temple and the requirements of the new education. 
The home was the first to feel the reactionof the newly empha- 
sized priest-individual ; every parent should be one, and every 
home has the sanctity of an altar. The parent caught the full 
drift of the sentence "He who teaches the Law to his children 
is as meritorious as if he himself had received it on Mount 
Horeb." (Kid 30). 

(c) The Growth of Extra-Domestic Schools. 

The school was the logical outcome of conditions prevalent 
during the closing decades of the Biblical Era. In the century 
between Simeon ben Shetach and Joshua ben Gamla the ele- 
mentary school for children became a powerful instrument 
for education. The elementary school was not meant to sup- 
plant but to supplement the home, "in order that the father- 
less children might be educated." (Baba Bathra 21a). 

Higher schools like the Academy, and Extension Courses 
like the "Kalla," supplied the craving for deeper research and 
wider knowledge. Jabne, Sura, Pombaditha and Nehardea 
were full of thousands of earnest men studying the law in all 
its ramifications, nor did they fail to wander in other and sec- 
ular fields of Greek language and philosophy. Jerushalmi 
Megilla, 1,8). It is, therefore, easy to understand how learn- 
ing in Israel during the Renaissance was burning with a 
healthy flame. 



35 

(d) The Educational Task of the Rabbi. ^ ' 
During all these centuries from the close of the Biblical 

Era, the main imparter of knowledge was the Rabbi. He was 
the legitimate successor of priest and prophet, scribe and 
sage. As champion of tradition, his was no less the appeal to 
the moral law. Taking his stand on the preserved written 
and oral law, his was also the teaching of the discipline of 
life. He inherited all their methods and applied them. Yet 
he was the creator of a new method of interpretation and ap- 
plication. The Rabbi taught by the direct appeal of the proph- 
et and sage, but his appeal was largely to the intellect. Hi^ 
was the disputational method. It was what we now call, seek- 
ing a truth by analysis, antithesis and synthesis. The result 
of centuries of such training of thousands of Rabbis in doz- 
ens of academies produced a sharpening of the intellect whose 
edge has not been dulled in Israel of to-day. It was intellec- 
tual, but it was also religious. It was saturated with God and 
with life's consecration. 

The Gaon was the mental successor of the Rabbi and evi • 
dences the contact of the Jew and the Moor. On his vast in • 
tellectual activity and of his subsequent influence on Jewish 
and scientific development in Spain and later on in Italy, it is 
unnecessary to expatiate further. 

(e) The Increase of Text-Books and the Catechism. 

The Bible ceased to be the only book ; its energies created 
the Mishna and Talmud, its legal and poetic sides, vast 
homiletic literature and codes, all displaying a wealth and 
unsurpassed variety of literary achievement. Of the educa- 
tional greatness of the Talmud in all the past centuries it is 
impossible to speak in measured words. It is enough to ac- 
knowledge its grip on the Jewish mind for many centuries 
and its saturation and fashioning of the habit, thought and 
aspiration of the Jew for eighteen centuries. 

The catechism in our sense was a late product in the edu- 
cational system of the Jew.* All the mass of literature refer- 
red to furnished enough text-books to engage the energies of 
men. But new occasions teach new duties. All alone", then, 
catechisms were unnecessary because abstract education had 
not until the fourteenth century any Jewish need or justifica- 
tion. Education from the day of Moses to that of Maimoni- 
des was decidedly concrete. Yet the catechism came as a call 
of the times. Like the thirteen articles of faith by Maimoni- 

*See excellent bibliography at end of B.Strassburger's "Geschichteder Erziehungetc." 



36 

des, it was born because of pressure from without The Jew- 
ish genius from the days of Moses was able to Judaize what- 
ever it cared to adopt from its environment. It was always 
able to present a bold front toward the allurements from 
without on the educational plane, because it zvas always re- 
inforced from within, from the home. The catechisms of the 
"Hinuch" by Aaron Halevi of Barcelona (1302) and of the 
"Lekah Tob" by Abraham Jagel (1595) were imitations of 
the Catholic and of the Protestant educational methods. If 
this had been merely done in a spirit of self-defence and self- 
preservation there could have been no reason for lamentation. 
But it, unfortunatly, must have received its initial impulse 
from the slackening duty of the home and of its time-honored 
obligation "to learn and to teach." The manuals were neces- 
sitated by the lack of time given by the parents to religious 
training, and by the secular pressure from without. 

Summing up with a hasty glance at these five important 
characteristics, one feels that Israel has remained progress- 
ively true to its educational instinct and ideal. It stands for 
religious culture, into which parents, priests, prophets, 
scribes, sages, rabbis, gaonin and teachers have poured their 
talent, their faith, their energy, their enthusiasm and their 
undying loyalty. The educational life of thirty-odd cen- 
turies is God-grounded and life-centered. 

The Sabbath School, as we now understand it, is like the 
catechism, an adapted institution. It has become in the past 
fifty years so thoroughly domesticated as to be considered 
native-born. Its particular form in this country is due to the 
democratic spirit, to the separation of Church and State and 
to the pressure of secular forces on our domestic integrity 
and virility. The Sabbath School with the assured apprecia 
tion, if not always active cooperation of home, has become 
entirely congregationalized. Our religious task, then, is to 
harmonize the Mosaic-Prophetic national standpoint with the 
Rabbinic individualism. The Jew is a religious entity, and, 
also, a citizen. His religious culture must look to the preser- 
vation of his Jewish integrity, while his religious integrity 
must be an inspiration to his national citizenship in America. 



